Monday, September 30, 2013

Met up with some girlfriends for dinner, so took advantage of the hair and makeup done to get a decent pic of the belly! Being my 5th pregnancy, my belly popped out pretty early.....so, ummm, yeah....I am ONLY 11.5 weeks, there is only 1 lil' guy in there, and I look like I am 6 months preggo!

On Wednesday of last week, I met with an OB nurse and went through my history and got blood work completed. Thursday, I met with a midwife. Baby Jeremias is looking good. Due to having a bacterial infection, I am to start taking an antibiotic in a couple of weeks, when I reach 2nd trimester. Everything else is looking good. I return to see my OB in one month.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

The whole family went to the local GLBTQA Pride Event this past weekend. I wore my Proud Surrogate shirt - got a few compliments. Since the kids were with us, we missed out on the drag shows that happened later in the evening. They are always so much fun. The kids had fun playing games.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Well, here is lil' Jeremias growing big and strong. I am considered 8 weeks. My due date is APril 16, 2014. I am feeling pregnant. I might be forgetting, but I think I have a touch more nausea this time around. Just a general, low nauseous feeling, nothing extreme, no actual vomiting, but enough to want to keep something on my belly. The last few days, nothing has seemed appetizing to me. Jeremias is using my energy to grow, leaving me a bit tired. My youngest started back to pre-school, so I sometimes use the afternoon, while she is at school, to catch a quick rest. I have also suffered from allergies this past week. There is a lot of pollen in the air right now. The fertility clinic said it was alright to manage it with Alavert and Benadryl, so have been taking these medications minimally to help. Benadryl makes me sleepy so I tend to only take this at bedtime. I look forward to the first frost to kill all that pollen. I also look forward to my belly popping out more, as right now, I just feel pudgy. I love the fullness of a pregnant body. :) I am done with the fertility clinic and my local reproductive medicine monitoring clinic. I am officially released to my OB physician. I look forward to filling him in on all the details of this surrogacy. My first appointments are later this month. I am supposed to continue the 2 estradiol patches every other day and my progeterone vaginal inserts until Sept. 21st. Grow, lil' guy, grow! :)

My family

Welcome to my surrogacy blog!

Hi. My name is Carla. I am married to Brian. We have been married almost 10 years. We had 3 children in 2.5 years: Gareth (6-06), Zane (9-07), and Iris (1-09). Brian works as a web programmer. I used to be a social worker for people with developmental disabilities, but now stay home with our children.

In June 2009, we moved from a nice, cookie cutter subdivision to a humble, little, farm house, on 10 acres, in rural east central Illinois. We are interested in living a simpler life moving towards self sufficiency. We are interested in homesteading, gardening, beekeeping, and atheism/secular humanism/skepticism. I am a crafter of all sorts of creations - love to sew and quilt, and have many other interests, including weaving, pottery, painting, scrapbooking, among other things.

Our family feels complete - we are very done having babies for ourselves! My husband had a vasectomy to ensure that we would not be surprised with another baby.

I started thinking about becoming a gestational surrogate during my second pregnancy. The feelings I had did not fade, so here we are now. We were lucky enough to conceive quickly/naturally and have "easy" pregnancies. I have friends and have read about many people that have fertility issues and it does not come so easily for them. It saddens me that they can not fulfill their dreams. I was able to help a couple complete their family, delivering a baby girl, in December 2011. I am now on my second and final journey, helping 2 men from Argentina become daddies, with additional help from an egg donor.

Feel free to ask any questions. I tend to be an open book as long as there is genuine, sincere, respectful interest.